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The main purpose of this paper is to explore the borrowers’ intention to participate in small entrepreneurship based on Islamic principles. In doing so, this study has conducted an investigation in the case of a new Waqf-based model for Islamic microfinance in Bangladesh, which targets extending loans to the rural poor to alleviate rural poverty in society.

The researchers used the survey technique to investigate the microentrepreneurs’ intention to participate in this new Islamic microfinance scheme. A total of 290 responses were collected from the rural poor located in three different districts of Bangladesh and the participation of respondents was on a voluntary basis. The structural equation modeling technique was used to analyze the data using the SmartPLS-3 software.

Findings of the study indicate that Islamic moral obligations are observed to be substantially significant to influence empathy, favorable and unfavorable reasons to participate in the scheme. In turn, empathy is also found to be robust to influence intention or niyyah toward borrowing microfinance to initiate microentrepreneurship. However, among the four mediating effects, only two are found to be statistically significant.

Theoretical implications suggest that Islamic moral obligations remain at the core of the present research model. The significant impact of this variable implies that Islamic moral values and obligations are substantially important for the people in Bangladesh who strictly follow Islam in their daily lives. The research recommends the necessity for an awareness program on Islamic microfinance and the role of a Waqf-based scheme in the economic empowerment of the rural poor in society.

This institution practically implies harnessing the role of the Waqf-based philanthropic scheme to empower microentrepreneurs in society to alleviate poverty. Practical implications also highlight that Humanitarian Economic Lending Program (HELP) is a new type of Islamic microfinance institute based on Karz-e-Hassanah scheme and started in a small business initiative. In this study, one of the most important findings is that most people are strongly concerned about reasons, which may help the founder of HELP to propagate its branches across Bangladesh.

The model of this scheme may empower poor microentrepreneurs and consolidate the potential of a Waqf-based scheme for attaining socio-economic development. This fund may be used for social Islamic business as well.

Only a few studies have been directed on microfinance from an Islamic perspective in Bangladesh. This is the first initiative for a new scheme to be verified using an empirical method. Thus, testing the viability of this scheme in the Bangladesh context will certainly add value to the clients, institutions and policymakers in the Islamic microfinance paradigm.

Both QS World university rankings and US higher education accreditation agencies provide external quality evaluation for institutions to deliver quality control and assurance, which causes ample criticism about the academic freedom of teaching staff. Moreover, Austria-based Green Pedagogy advocates outcome-based sustainable quality learning, which promotes teachers’ psychological empowerment and autonomy and the UNESCO model of education advances a transformative paradigm to sustain social, economic and environmental well-being. In this backdrop, this study aims to attain two objectives: the first is to conceptualize a research framework investigating psychological empowerment for predicting faculty academic autonomy, which, in turn, influences sustainable quality education in private higher education institutes (HEIs); and the second is to explore the expert opinion on the suitability of an approach to sustainable quality education between the movements of Green Pedagogy and the UNESCO model globally.

To attain the objectives, this study uses a model of psychological empowerment (MPE) as its theoretical basis. The data (n = 390) was electronically collected from the teachers of 21 private universities through a self-administered questionnaire and analyzed following the procedure of Smart-PLS-SEM. Respondents were selected based on a random sampling procedure.

Findings of this study indicate that psychological empowerment significantly influences teacher autonomy, which significantly influences sustainable quality education. The findings also highlight that the scholars vie for the Green Pedagogy in comparison to Education for Sustainable Development to ensure sustainable quality education in private HEIs. Furthermore, content analyses show that the US higher education accreditation process dilutes faculty academic freedom as well as quality education.

From a research perspective, this study results demonstrate that the MPE appears to be a robust theoretical approach. It also implies that a psychologically empowered teacher is characterized by greater autonomy, responsibility, belief in their competences and application of them in work practice and ability to teach their students effectively. Future research needs further investigation to reconfirm the results.

From a practical standpoint, the results of this study have significant and pervasive lessons for the administrators and academic leaders in HEIs. First, the management of HEIs can capitalize to psychologically empower the faculty members and also allow adequate academic autonomy to ensure sustainable quality education. Second, this study highlights that the Green Pedagogy approach is practically more suitable to attain sustainability in HEIs. And third, with the advancement of new technology, faculty members have to prepare themselves with improved knowledge and pedagogy techniques for which they need to be empowered more by allowing significant level of faculty autonomy.

Social implications of this study are that Green Pedagogy is observed to be superior to UNESCO model in terms of ensuring sustainable quality education by which the students and teachers can contribute more in social and community development.

This study has a significant empirical contribution in understanding the importance of faculty empowerment and freedom or autonomy to ensure sustainable quality learning embodying the Green Pedagogy approach in HEIs, when international HEIs are competing for accreditation and QS rankings.

This study broadly intends to explore the impact of perceived consumer experience in branchless Islamic banking on consumer satisfaction, which may enhance financial inclusion of rural people in Islamic banking activities. Specifically, this study sets three objectives: first, to explore the effects of Islamic bank consumers’ experience on disconfirmation and satisfaction; second, to investigate the impact of expectations on service performance, disconfirmation and consumer-perceived experience; and third, to examine consumer satisfaction in Islamic branchless banking to broadly examine the status of overall financial inclusion.

Data were collected from selected consumers of Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited (IBBL) using a random sampling procedure. The selected consumers of eight remote branchless locations of the Islamic bank were interviewed face-to-face. Data were processed using PLS-SEM.

The results of the study show that all hypotheses were supported, indicating consumers’ experience, expectations and performance significantly influence their branchless Islamic banking satisfaction. This indicates that branchless Islamic banking can enhance consumer satisfaction and ensure the wider financial inclusion of remotely located rural people in banking activities.

From a theoretical perspective, the study findings show the robustness of the expectancy disconfirmation theory (EDT) for aiding to predict customer satisfaction in branchless Islamic banking activities. Other studies have also fruitfully used EDT as a theoretical framework from which to explain citizenship satisfaction in local governments of the public domain (Van Ryzen, 2004, 2006, 2013) or to explain customer satisfaction in variety of programs (Oliver, 1980, 1997, 2014). From the same perspective, the model implies that the important role of perceived consumer expectation significantly determines consumer satisfaction in the branchless Islamic banking initiative.

From a practical perspective, it is implied that digitally operated branchless Islamic banking is the most convenient banking process. On the one hand, it entails extensive financial inclusion of rural and remote areas of the country and minimizes operating costs of banking operations; on the other hand, it is opening the door to profit maximization for the banking industry. The findings from this research will practically imply the way for new horizons in the application of branchless banking within the Islamic banking and finance sector. In this regard, policy planners ought to be more careful in formulating banking and financial outlays by which digital or branchless banking facilities may be extensively spread to reach the unbanked populace across the nation within a short-possible time frame.

The findings from this research will pave the way for new horizons in the application FinTech within the Islamic banking and finance sector. Such studies should also take into account the emerging phenomenon of combining Shari’ah and FinTech, referred to as Shari’ah FinTech, to fully explore its potential and implications for the industry. Thus, the banking industry as a whole ought to be attentive to extending this type of digital transformation in the banking industry to provide win-win situations for both the client and agent in the financial and banking operations in the country.

This research is based on primary data and provides significant results in terms of digital customer satisfaction.

This study aims to investigate the effects of standardization, accreditation process on academic freedom and quality learning in higher education institutes (HEIs). In addition, this study explores the mediating effects of academic freedom between standardization, accreditation and learning.

To attain the objective, the study uses the theory of self-determination as its theoretical underpinning. The smart PLS-SEM technique is applied for analyzing data.

The results indicate that the accreditation process has a significant negative influence on faculty academic freedom and quality of learning in the sampled HEIs. There is also a significant mediating effect of academic freedom.

There are a few limitations in this study. First, the study considers the faculty members only as respondents. Second, this study only considers the faculty members of private universities as respondents. In the future, public HEIs could also be included in similar studies. Finally, this research has been done in the context of a developing country.

The findings of the study have pervasive implications for the authorities in HEIs. The authorities of HEIs might capitalize on this evidence in formulating the appropriate policy for their HEIs.

As the accreditation process weakens academic freedom and quality learning, accreditation should not be viewed as an institutional development and quality assurance tool. Rather, accreditation ought to allow for amplifying faculty voices, empowering faculty and protecting their rights.

Quantitative analysis on the subject addressed in the current study is scarce. Therefore, this research can be considered valuable for stakeholders of HEIs.

This study aims to determine how Basel III capital requirements affect the stability of Islamic banks globally during the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The secondary data for all Islamic banks worldwide from 2004 to 2021 is obtained from the FitchConnect database. The main technique was a two-step generalized method of moment (GMM) system, and the data were tested using pooled ordinary least squares, fixed effects and difference GMM models for robustness checks.

Regression results support the moral hazard hypothesis based on evidence that both the total capital ratio and the Tier 1 capital ratio have a statistically significant positive impact on the stability of Islamic banks globally. Furthermore, neither the global financial crisis of 2008–2009 nor COVID-19 (2020–2021) significantly impacted the stability of Islamic banks worldwide. The results are robust across alternative measures of stability, capital buffers, dummy variables and estimation techniques. According to the descriptive statistics, the number of Islamic banks that disclose their regulatory capital ratios to the public has increased over the study period, and the mean of total capital and Tier 1 ratios are considerably greater than what is required by Basel II and Basel III.

Bankers, regulators and policymakers should benefit from the evidence on capital and risk management in Islamic banking according to Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) and Islamic financial services board (IFSB) international standards in various jurisdictions.

This research builds on earlier studies that were both beneficial and instructive by exploring the relationship between BCBS and IFSB capital guidelines and the trustworthiness of Islamic banks in greater depth. This study uses numerous capital ratios, buffers and stability measures to provide an international context for research on Islamic banking. In addition, the database is up-to-date to include information about the COVID-19 pandemic aftereffects in the year 2021. This study also introduces the Basel membership of Islamic banks to provide context for countries still at the Basel II stage or are yet to begin implementing the Basel III international standard.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors determining students’ attitude toward using newly emerged artificial intelligence (AI) tool, Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (ChatGPT), for educational and learning purpose based on technology acceptance model.

The recommended model was empirically tested with partial least squares structural equation modeling using 375 student survey responses.

The study revealed that students have a favorable view of the instructional use of ChatGPT. Usefulness, social presence and legitimacy of the tool, as well as enjoyment and motivation, contribute to a favorable attitude toward using this tool in a learning environment. However, perceived ease of use was not found to be a significant determinant in the adoption and utilization of ChatGPT by the students.

This research is intended to benefit enterprises, academic institutions and the global community by offering light on how students perceive the ChatGPT service in an educational setting. Furthermore, the application enhances confidence and interest among learners, leading to improved literacy and general awareness. Eventually, the outcome of this research will help AI developers to improve their product and service delivery, as well as benefit regulators in regulating the usage of AI-based bots.

Due to its novelty, the current research on AI-based ChatGPT usage in the education sector is rather restricted. This study provides the adoption aspects of ChatGPT, a new AI-based technology for students, thereby contributing significantly to the existing research on the adoption of advanced education technologies. In addition, the literature lacks research on the adoption of ChatGPT by students for educational purposes; this study addresses this gap by identifying adoption determinants of ChatGPT in education.

The primary objective of this investigation was to explore how employees’ utilization of social media for work-related purposes impacts their service innovation behavior, both directly and through the intermediary mechanisms of knowledge management and employees’ risk-taking.

In developing its conceptual framework, this study has drawn upon the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) theory. To test its hypotheses, this study has surveyed 241 financial analysts from ten Iranian financial companies and has employed variance-based structural equation modeling (specifically, PLS-SEM) with the assistance of “WarpPLS 8.0 software.”

The findings revealed that employees’ work-related use of social media positively influences their service innovation behavior using knowledge management, encompassing knowledge sharing and acquisition capability as well as employee risk-taking. However, this influence is not directly significant.

To the best of our knowledge, this study marks the first instance in which the effect of work-related use of social media on employee service innovation behavior directly and through the mediating roles of knowledge management and risk-taking has been investigated through the lens of the SOR paradigm, especially in the financial sector.

This study examines how street food affects urban culture, economics and sustainable tourism. It examines how street food stands, as a cultural and economic phenomenon, influence consumer behaviour and local traditions, particularly in Oman’s evolving street food scene.

Adopting a quantitative research design, this study utilises an integrated model combining the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) and Attitude-Social-Influence-Efficacy (ASE) models. This approach facilitates a comprehensive analysis of the factors influencing consumer behaviour towards street food consumption. The methodology includes surveys and structured interviews with consumers and vendors to assess perceptions, attitudes and behaviours linked to street food in Oman.

The research identifies key sociocultural, economic and marketing factors that significantly influence consumer engagement with street food. It highlights how traditional elements, such as local customs and societal norms, interplay with contemporary marketing strategies to shape consumer preferences and experiences. The findings suggest that street food not only enhances the culinary experience for travellers but also plays a crucial role in the sustainable development of local tourism economies.

This study contributes to the existing literature by providing a novel empirical exploration of street food consumption in Oman, a relatively underexplored area within tourism research. It offers valuable insights into how street food can be leveraged to bolster local economies and enrich the tourist experience through sustainable practices. By integrating the S-O-R and ASE models, this research provides a unique framework for understanding the dynamic relationship between street food culture and consumer behaviour in a Middle Eastern context.

The present research examines an underlying mechanism outlining how features of the influencers’ content influence the consumers’ urge to buy impulsively through the mediation of trust. Moreover, the moderating role of persuasion knowledge is also investigated in this study.

By employing persuasion theory and social capital theory, this study develops a framework that is tested on 251 social media users. The PLS-SEM modeling technique is employed for data analysis.

Results indicate that vicarious expressions and informational value are the two main characteristics of the influencer’s content, which develop trust in influencers’ posts and instigate an UBI. In addition, trust in influencer posts serves as a mediator between content characteristics and UBI. However, no moderating role of persuasion knowledge was found.

The present study offers an inclusive understanding of how marketers can strategically use influencers by leveraging the influential power of their content.